Eric H. Yoffie

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie served as President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the congregational arm of the Reform Jewish Movement in North America that represents 1.5 million Reform Jews in 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada, from 1996 to 2012.

Yoffie studied at Stanford University and graduated from Brandeis University. He received his Rabbinical ordination from Hebrew Union College in New York in 1974. He served congregations in Lynbrook, NY, and Durham, NC, before joining the URJ as director of the Midwest Council in 1980. In 1983 he was named Executive Director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA). In 1992 he became vice president of the URJ, director of the Commission on Social Action and executive editor of Reform Judaism magazine, before becoming URJ President in 1996.

Even after four terms as PM, U.S. Jews have heard plenty of ugliness and equivocations, but not what Netanyahu really believes on peace and war, religion and state. That makes advocating for Zionism in America that much harder

Leading Israeli rabbi Haim Druckman called on national TV to 'release the children' suspected of stoning to death Palestinian mother-of-seven Aisha Rabi - because they're 'not terrorists.' His behavior is an inexcusable perversion of Jewish values

Trump has mesmerized most Jewish Israelis and about a quarter of U.S. Jews in a cult-like grip, despite serially deferring to anti-Semites at home, and emboldening Israel's enemies abroad. It's time to face reality

For two years, Trump has incited, race-baited, and immigrant-bashed, to the delight of America’s far right fanatics. To the surprise of absolutely no one, they are now killing Jews. Countering them, with our allies, is a battle we must fight, and win

We know where bigoted, autocratic, indecent and parochial views like those of Donald Trump lead. U.S. Jews should be praying for every Democratic candidate canvasser to succeed: the American Jewish future depends on it

Never before have U.S. Jews been so distressed and divided about Israel. Hawks and doves no longer recognize any legitimacy in the other’s arguments. But we Reform rabbis cannot flinch from declaring our stance

From jettisoning LGBT and minority rights to befriending the European nationalist right and abjectly surrendering to ultra-Orthodox dictates, Netanyahu serially chooses the path of stupidity, political convenience and moral obtuseness

Netanyahu always tells us Trump has Israel’s back on Iran. But the president won't confront tyrants, intent as he is on unraveling America’s commitments abroad. If Tehran races to nuclear capability, Israel will pay the price - alone

When Trump deliberately avoided Roseanne’s racism, it confirmed again his lifelong contempt for people who are not white. 'But he says he loves Israel' is a morally corrupt defense for Orthodox leaders to keep supporting him

If 100 Jewish bodies were strewn across southern Israel, would the American left more readily forgive Israel’s defensive actions against an angry mob of tens of thousands propelled by the murderous, anti-Semitic terrorists of Hamas?

Naftali Bennett describes American Jewish identity as a scene of carnage so that he, the self-styled 'Minister of the Jews', can take credit for sending in Israeli rescue crews. But we U.S. Jews don’t want, or need, saving by him

AIPAC has finessed Israel's occupation for too long, and refuses to push back against Trump and the GOP's 'America First' nativism. That's why for many on the American Jewish left, AIPAC is now the enemy

Bluster, Bible and platitudes: Pence’s Knesset speech fed Israel’s delusional right-wing what it wanted to hear, while scaling new heights of sycophancy to Trump. But he couldn't hide the U.S. policy emptiness at its core

The Jewish hard right and the Jewish hard left, the Likud and Jewish Voice for Peace, are united by their rejection of two states. But those fanatics doom both Jews and Palestinians to a one state 'solution' from hell

We now know what's behind the consistently contemptuous attitude Israel's PM has demonstrated toward American Jews - and no, it's not the cold calculus of domestic political survival. It's far more delusional than that

The pro-peace, pro-negotiations, two-state camp consensus in Israel welcomed Trump's Jerusalem move. That shows it was no sell-out to Netanyahu and the Israeli right-wing - and that Palestinian rejectionists can't wish historical realities away

We're being squeezed from the left and the right: Christian supremacists like Roy Moore are as much a threat to U.S. Jews as the alt-right. And Linda Sarsour's 'no to a Jewish state' troops could win over Democratic grassroots

We're in unknown waters: between a nationalist president who gives succor to neo-Nazis, and an Israeli PM who humiliates us and sets in train a potentially irreversible rupture between U.S. Jews and Israel

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